


The Duros who knew too much

by Gabriel4Sam



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, On the Run, Post-Rako Hardeen arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 06:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20792522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel4Sam/pseuds/Gabriel4Sam
Summary: Hunted down by the Separatist, Cad Bane has no other choice than asking help from the last person he wants to see again, the pseudo Rako Hardeen, the Jedi who sent him to jail, Obi-Wan Kenobi.





	The Duros who knew too much

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shanlyrical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanlyrical/gifts).

> All my thanks to Sithsoka for beta-ing that fic despite my grammar ^^

Separatist or not, whoever had worked on the  _ Wanted: dead or alive _ poster for Obi-Wan Kenobi was a fan... The swooshing hair, the unmistakable grin, the sparkling eyes, the shoulders that were more suggested by the tunics than hidden… The man on the poster looked more like a holovid actor version of a Jedi than like the warrior monk Cad Bane had had the displeasure of fighting before.

With a smirk, Cad tore the poster off the wall. He was trying to keep a low profile but in this seedy part of the seediest town on the planet, he would have needed to take down the entire block before someone felt concerned.

He had elected an abandoned droid factory as a temporary safe house. Slowly he made his way to it, taking all precautions to make sure he wasn’t followed.

To survive the next weeks, he knew that vigilance, caution, and discretion were of the essence.

The  _ Wanted _ posters of Kenobi really were all over town, and probably all over the quadrant. The reward offered was simply obscene. The Separatist leaders knew Kenobi was in the sector, far away from the Republic lines, and they had no intention of wasting this chance. Everywhere, idiots who thought they could take down an adult Jedi  — and even more,  _ that _ Jedi, the hand-cutting, survives everything and everyone poster boy of the kriffin’ Jedi Council  — were getting ready for the fray and buying stun grenades by entire crates.

Cad entered the building, making sure to trip their silent alarm. He wanted the other user of the safe house to know he was there. It was prudent, since exhaustion could make people a little trigger happy. The other sentient was leaning down on his datapad, probably trying for the n th time to plot their escape from a heavily armed system wanting their two heads. Cad put the two containers of food he had brought back on a hastily cleaned table and couldn’t resist:

“Sweetheart, I’m home and I even brought you a little souvenir,” he said, and he put the  _ Wanted _ poster with the Negotiator's face on the table just under the other man’s nose.

“You’re far less hilarious than you think,” Obi-Wan Kenobi answered, fixing him with those colourful eyes human had.

It had been a low blow from fate, that had put Cad Bane in the position of travelling with the most wanted man this side of the galaxy, and without the possibility of obtaining the reward!

It had been fate, or perhaps in a tad less bombastic way, it had been Count Dooku. The former Jedi, new Sith, and all-around too smart for his own good man had long ago understood the usefulness of bounty hunters. Far more shrewd than an entire droid army, and most of the time more efficient, bounty hunters could even be discreetly murdered if they were captured. Any connection could, of course, be totally denied after. It was less easy with an entire platoon of murder boots which could have been dancing the cancan with “ _ We’ve been sent by the Separatists _ ” painted on giant placards, for how subtle they were.

So, Cad Bane had worked for Dooku. Once. Twice. And again and again. The pay was good; Dooku could be a manipulative bastard in search of galactic domination, or whatever Sith Leaders did in their spare time, but he was a rich manipulative bastard, and a classy one. He always paid on time, and he never went back on the price.

Best kind of employer, in Cad’s opinion.

Until the time Cad had come back too early from a deal Dooku had sent him to, and seen too much.

Too much was perhaps an exaggeration. He had seen the ending of a transmission, half a chin under a dark cloak, and a grin on pale, thin lips.

Oh, that grin. That grin was still haunting Cad. He had seen more charming grimaces on dying men’s lips.

And the voice…. The voice, the dripping malevolence, he was still hearing it whispering in his dreams, which had turned dark.

That day, Cad had escaped Dooku only by luck, and he knew all of the Separatist forces were searching for him, relentlessly if discreetly. If it was official, it would have been admitting he knew too much.

Cad wasn’t an idiot. He knew Dooku and the entire Separatist army was a little too much for him. He needed help, and swiftly. He hadn’t contacted the Republic Judicial Service, a bunch of morons in his opinion, but the Jedi directly, who had immediately sent two of their Masters. It spoke of the Jedi’s desperation in this war, of how difficult things were that they couldn’t find anyone else to send than a Jedi killed ten hours into this mission, and the Negotiator himself; one of the fourth, perhaps fifth most recognizable Jedi!

So, here they were. Obi-Wan Kenobi had been caught on holocamera during the skirmish that had ended the life of his unfortunate colleague, whose name Cad hadn’t bothered to remember, and was now being searched for in every nook of the planet by every idiot with a blaster and a desire for credits. And the infuriating human was still probably Cad’s best chance of surviving. Force users were mortal, like everyone else. Nevertheless, when lightsabers were singing, the best solution was still to find another Force User ready to die defending you because you had important information. Then, it was smart to run into the other direction while the two Force Users replayed the ancient feud of Sith versus Jedi.

All of this was not doing his mood any favours, and the worst thing was that he was pretty sure the Jedi, who had just lost a colleague, was still trying to cheer Bane up!

“Come on,” Obi-Wan sassed, appropriating one of the food containers, “It will be like the Rako Hardeen saga-“

“-an episode of my life I’m trying my damn best to forget-“ Cad grumbled.

“Us against the galaxy, the villain and the Jedi, daring against all odds-“

“-I love how you cast yourself as some sort of antithesis of the villain. This half of the galaxy is sure  _ you _ ’re the villain, Jedi scum, dog of war of the Republic, etc.…”

“-Dog of the Republic? Hadn’t heard that one. And I’m pretty sure you liked me, when I was supposed to be a villain too!”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m reproaching you, Kenobi!” And Cad, taking his food with him, retreated to another part of the factory, suddenly more furious with the Jedi than about their circumstances.

He had liked Rako Hardeen. He liked people smart enough, strong enough, people he could be sure wouldn’t leave only grief in their wake, once the galaxy offed them.

He had liked Jango, which had been stupid of his part, because at the end, Jango wasn’t smart enough to keep himself from intergalactic conspirators…which may or may not have been exactly the mistake Cad had made too.

He was brooding, remembering how Hardeen had helped him in the Cube, how he had seemed dependable, as much as a bounty hunter could be, how Cad had imagined his days of solo hunts could perhaps stop, when half the wall exploded, half burying him in rumbles.

His ear canals were ringing, his torso almost crushed under the weight, he struggled to get free, even harder once he heard the tell-tale sounds of droids. He had been found, and soon he would join Jango wherever the kriff bounty hunt-….There. The hiss of a lightsaber, and the pale blue light, the only thing visible in the swirls of dust from the explosion. The light danced, never still, and in every loop of its dance, sparks gushed, as the blade passed into the reinforced metal of the droids as if cutting through air.

In a few seconds, it was done. The droids sent to kill them was a pile of junk on the floor, and Kenobi, when he knelt down next to Cad, not even winded.

The rumble floated away and Kenobi helped him sit down. Cad bit down a cry. Something was broken in his torso. Kenobi examined lightly the area despite Cad’s protests that Kenobi could buy him dinner first, thank you very much.

“Your furcula is broken.”

“My what?”

“How can you…not important. Let me…”

“Hands off, eh, Kenobi. I’m gonna bite you, and my saliva is sure toxic to you…”

“Of course, it isn’t. Stop wriggling about, I’m trying to…I didn’t think you would be so prudish, stop moving, you blue idiot.”

Struggling along, the two fugitives took off, Cad resting against Kenobi, less because he couldn’t walk, nothing was wrong with his legs, but because every time they were in contact, the pain went down.

“Are you using Jedi tricks on me?”

“If I was, you would shut up,” Kenobi remarked, hurrying them from discreet corners of the street to the service entrance of the nearest cantina.

“Too close from the attack,” Cad protested, as Kenobi was hauling him higher into the building, mind tricking everyone they saw, until the door of a poorly lit room closed behind them.

“They won’t search this close, because they will think we will run as fast, as far as we can from the droid factory,” Kenobi finally answered.

“Yeah, because we  _ should _ .”

“Not with you in this state. The gravity of his planet must already be hard enough on your body, I fear without that bone your thoracic cage will collapse.”

Cad grimaced and sat down heavily.

“You didn’t even know what that bone was,” Kenobi remarked.

“My education was more blasters than anatomy. Even my own. Do you think street urchin…” He stopped. What was he thinking, starting to blather like that about his past?

Kenobi knelt down in front of him and ordered:

“Give me your hands.”

“Human are gross and you’re not my type,” Cad huffed in annoyance.

“You stared at Hardeen’s behind too much for me to entirely believe you. Your hands, Bane. It will be much easier.”

“You are going to a lot of trouble for a bounty hunter who saw, perhaps, half the face of that thrice-damned Sith Lord.”

“It’s still a lot more than the lot of us saw, every piece of information is important…and even if it wasn’t, what sort of Jedi would be, if I let you suffer when I can help.”

“A smarter one.”

Kenobi laughed, and not the small huff Cad’s words warranted. A full bodied laugh, perhaps a tad hysterical, and for the first time, Cad paid more attention to the obvious signs of exhaustion of the other sentient. He asked himself how it would feel, all the death happening in the galaxy during this war, for a man who could touch unknown power, who could feel the fabric of life.

He gave his hands to Kenobi, clinging to them like an anchor when a great wave of power passed into him, fading between his eyelids in a shower of multi-coloured sparks. It was like being drunk on light, it was a high like no other, it was tasting power itself and when it stopped, the pain was gone.

Cad came crashing down on Kenobi, on Obi-Wan, like a tree would go down, like a ship with dead motors, and they rolled on the floor, the powerful connection shared for a minute intoxicating them. Human lips were warm and agile, and if the taste of his tongue seemed foreign to Cad, it was something exotic, like a fruit from a long lost planet, delicious and tasty. Cad bit down that mouth until the lips were red and shiny, and Kenobi was making the most interesting sounds, until the last whisper of power died down, leaving them struggling for breath on the floor, and putting them in a quite awkward situation.

“Do all Jedi healing has those interesting effects?” the bounty hunter asked, helping the human up.

“No,” Kenobi answered, his tone strange, and his face flushed, but Cad couldn’t have remembered what it meant when human’s faces were red if his life depended on him.

They sat down on the bed, carefully not looking at each other.

“We will just stay here a few hours,” Kenobi said, “then I suggest we steal a ship.”

“This is getting exactly like the Hardeen fiasco,” Cad remarked, “ and the last time ended with me on a fast track to jail.”

“Except this time, we’re on the same team. We made a great one when I was there to spy on you, so imagine how we’ll do now.”

“Hmpf.”

A moment of silence.

“I liked Hardeen,” Cad admitted, because he needed something, anything to avoid feeling indebted to Kenobi for the healing, and that confession, that small fact he had kept for him all those months after the betrayal, seemed like something difficult to admit, something precious.

“I know,” Kenobi simply said, “and the sad part was that he…I….Hardeen liked working with you. Fleeing with you. It was…freeing. Good. Something without rules and responsibilities, something…” He clamped down on the next words and they stayed there, wishing the time to go faster.

A few hours to wait, a few days on the run, probably, before finding back the safety of Republic lines.

And whatever would happen during those days, they would be the only ones to ever know.

Cad licked his lips, where Kenobi’s taste lingered. He suddenly felt much better about all of this. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr too, under the same username, come and say hi!


End file.
